Congenial centenarians
Jean Dunbar and Carrie Chambers were party girls this month.
The two residents of Seasons First Avenue, a senior retirement community, celebrated milestone birthdays in December.
I should be this congenial if I get to be 100- plus, as they are. Come to think of it, I should be this congenial now.
Jean turned 100 on Dec. 26. Carrie turned 103 on Dec. 17.
I interviewed them in their rooms Sunday afternoon, Dec. 24. The birthday girls thought I was making much ado about nothing. Another Seasons resident, Kay Jones, tipped me off about them: “People should know these two ladies are having these birthdays,” she said in a phone call.
Jean said she is her family’s first centenarian.
“Nobody in my family has done that,” she said. “That’s really something.”
Her mother died at a relatively young age: she was 62.
Jean was born in Dundela, Ont. She looked a bit surprised when I said I’d never heard of Dundela.
“You should know about Dundela,” she said. “It’s famous. That’s where the McIntosh apple originated.”
Sorry, Jean. I was embarrassed right to the core.
She said Dundela is on the St. Lawrence River, about 100 km south of Ottawa, midway between Kingston and Montreal.
She grew up a farm girl. The family farm had “everything,” chickens, geese, cows, horses and pigs, she said.
After she left the farm, Jean worked for the post office in Iroquois, a little place outside of Morrisburg. She said she worked there until she was 62, then she retired and lived in Morrisburg.
“They didn’t let you work past 62,” she said.
Jean moved to Welland when one of her daughters, Auriel, moved here.
“My daughter came down here so I had to come. She looks after me.”
She has been a resident in Seasons for four or five years.
“It’s hard to remember details at my age. I have to think back.”
I asked what she wanted for her birthday.
She said: “Nothing. I have everything I need.”
That includes her own teeth. She made a point of telling me, and showing me, her teeth are her own, they are not false teeth.
A quiet family birthday was in store at her daughter’s Welland home, Jean said. That’s how Jean wanted it.
At Seasons, Jean enjoys taking part in activities. Her favourite is bingo, which she plays as often she can. She wins big, sometime, she said.
Asked what she attributes her longevity to, Jean said, “Hard work. Especially on the farm. And I never drank or smoked.”
Kay Jones said Jean is well- known, even “famous” among residents for her Christmas socks, which she sported in the interview and showed off a second pair as well.
Carrie Chambers said her roots are on a farm in South Cayuga, west of Dunnville.
The family had a dairy farm but they also had other animals including “pigs for food” and three horses.
“We all had chores to do on the farm,” she recalled. She smiled and said: “My main chore was to make sure we had dessert, pies and cakes.”
After high school, she secured a job at Monarch Knitting in Dunnville and married a local boy in 1939. He had a university degree and got a job at Dominion Textiles where he was very successful, rising to president of one of its mills, she said. They lived in Valleyfield, Quebec for many years.
Over the years she developed a passion for curling, a sport she still enjoys immensely. She wishes she could find someone with whom she could talk about the sport, things like experiences, memories and bonspiels.
Her husband retired in 1980 and they returned to the Dunnville area, where they built a home. He passed in 2007 and Carrie moved to Chartwell, as it was called at the time, now Seasons. She’d heard about it by word of mouth and it came highly recommended. Carrie moved there in 2008 and is there to this day. She has a son, Doug who lives in the area and a daughter Jade who lives in British Columbia.
Carrie had a roommate in her two- bedroom suite for about four years after moving in. His name was Rummy, her cat. She had him for 18 years and parting with him to have him put down “was the hardest thing I had to do.” He was 19.
Carrie is perplexed by her longevity.
“I have no idea where it comes from. I don’t know if it’s good genes. My mother died at 92, my father at 78.
“I don’t know why I’m so lucky to live to this age, it’s amazing. I can’t believe I’m 103, although today I feel I’m 103 because we had a party last week and it drained me.”
But she has more good days than not so good. Carrie said she can still go downstairs for three meals a day, every day, with the other residents.
She smiled and said: “I guess I’m doing OK.”